VITALITY IN THE ROYAL FAMILY.
[To THY EDITOR OF T111 " SNICTATOR."] Sts,—After all, is it not too early to assume that the family of Prince George show a tendency to low vitality ? We can take the average length of life attained by his progenitors of three generations, and then draw the fair and natural in. ference. His parents are still living. Of his four grand- parents, three are still alive, and the youngest of the three seventy-two. Of his eight great-grandparents I gather the following particulars from the " Almanach de Gotha." One, the Prince Consort's mother, died aged thirty ; a second, Duke William of Schleswig-Holstein, father of King Christian, atte•ined the age of forty-six; the Duke of Kent died at fifty-two ; and Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, the father of the Prince Consort, at sixty. Of the remaining four, the youngest was seventy-four; and the average for the eight was sixty-two. Now, this is a record by no means bad; but we inherit our stock of health or the reverse in a high degree from our direct female ancestresses ; and it is satisfactory to reflect upon the still living Queen of Denmark, and her seventy-four years, and upon her mother—Louise, wife of William, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel—who reached that same age. On the whole, and more particularly when we bear in mind that some of these did not live under particularly healthy surroundings, we may safely infer that Prince George's immediate ancestry show as much health and vitality as most families can boast of, and do not give cause for any alarm in regard to their descendant, our presumably
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